


Lazarus, Bound Up In Silver Threads

by AimeeLouWrites



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous Relationships, Caretaking, F/M, Gen, Playing Fast And Loose With Continuity, Puppet Cloud Strife, Putting My Grubby Little Paws All Over Canon For Fun and Profit, Sephiroth (Compilation of FFVII) Being An Asshole, Time Travel, Zack Fair Lives, Zack Fair Needs a Hug, my canon now, this will have a happy ending i swear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:29:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27584785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AimeeLouWrites/pseuds/AimeeLouWrites
Summary: Cloud vanished just before the boys made it back to Midgar. As a consequence, Zack comes home alive.Maybe this is better. Maybe it isn't.Either way, Zack is determined to find Cloud and save his friend once more—even if this means saving him from himself.
Relationships: Sephiroth & Cloud Strife, Zack Fair & Cloud Strife, Zack Fair & Sephiroth, Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough
Comments: 58
Kudos: 193





	1. The Unraveling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WaifuJuju](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaifuJuju/gifts).



> This one is kind of...experimental. It might jump around a bit as I tell it in distinct pieces. If it doesn't work, eh, I'll revise it.

I.

Zack talks to Cloud a lot, not that there’s anyone else to talk to. It’s good for Cloud, and good for him, because Zack is talkative and if he stopped he’d probably just shrivel up and die, and—that’s probably not the best thought to have right now. But he talks to Cloud a lot, and sometimes if he looks  _ really close _ and makes sure the poor kid has as much contact with him as possible, he’s absolutely certain that Cloud can understand him.

The reports were wrong. They have to be. Cloud is going to recover.

It’s not like there isn’t proof, beyond the minute shifts in the muscles around his mouth and eyes. Zack has to take complete care of him, it’s true—he has to bathe the kid when he bathes himself, and feed him, and carry him everywhere. But Cloud can chew and swallow just fine, and, tellingly, doesn’t piss himself. Ever. He just...waits until Zack tells him to. Not that Zack wouldn’t have figured something out, but it’s nice for both of them that Cloud has control over  _ something, _ embarrassing as it is.

Zack doesn’t mind the one-sided conversations. He’d probably talk even if he was sure Cloud couldn’t hear him, but just knowing that someone is listening is enough to keep him going. Enough to give him hope. This isn’t over. They got  _ out, _ and Cloud is going to recover, and Zack is going to introduce him to Aerith and they’re going to get along like a house on fire. He tells Cloud as much and swears he sees his friend’s lips twitch upward, just a little.

So he talks, and Cloud listens, and together they do their level best to make it back to Midgar.

II.

“Well, Cloudy-boy,” he says with a cheer that’s only a  _ little _ forced, stifling a yawn in his hand, “I don’t know about you, but I am beat! Let’s go to bed.”

They have one scuffed-up backpack and a tattered sleeping bag between them, but that’s fine. Zack would never let Cloud sleep out of arm’s reach anyway, not when the risk of seizure is still so high. He’s aware that there are rules for keeping people safe when they’re seizing, but he...doesn’t know them. And he has no way of learning them. So he just does his best to make sure that Cloud doesn’t hurt himself or choke when he throws up and prays to any god who will listen that it’s enough.

He puts the backpack up against a tree and leans against it so that his lower back won’t ache in the morning, then settles Cloud in front of him and zips them both up into the sleeping bag. Like this, he’ll wake up instantly if Cloud so much as twitches, they’ll both stay warm, and he can quickly roll over to shield Cloud with his body if he needs to. His sword is buried in the ground beside them, offering a meager shield against anyone who might come from the direction of the dirt road a few hundred yards away.

He settles down with a sigh, tucking Cloud’s head securely against his shoulder, and closes his eyes. The night is quiet, nothing but bugs and wild animals for miles around. Leaves rustle softly in the wind. Slowly, he relaxes from hyperawareness into a doze. Cloud’s breath is warm and even over the top of his shirt collar.

In the twilight between sleep and wakefulness, Zack’s arms tighten around his friend as he’s overwhelmed by a sudden rush of gratitude. He’s not alone out here. He’s not facing this on his own. “We’re gonna make it,” he murmurs, a little slurred from exhaustion. “Both of us. I promise.”

He leans their heads together, black and blond hair mingling, and falls asleep.

III.

His dreams are tinged in green and warped by horror. Nibelheim burns, its citizens laying dead around him. He hurdles bodies and dashes through roaring flames, chasing after his one-time friend and commanding officer. Disbelief burns in him, far more intense than the fire that threatens to scorch the air from his lungs.

_ How? Why? What did he miss? Why couldn’t he stop it? _

In the reactor they fight, and he doesn’t understand what happened to Sephiroth. But he does understand what he has to do, even though it hurts just as deeply as Angeal’s betrayal hurt. Even though it cuts into his soul. He’s starting to understand, now, that Shinra will take away everything he loves. That SOLDIER will drive even the best men off the brink, and leave him to clean up the pieces—at least until it’s his turn to be driven to dishonor. Until it’s his turn to die on the sword of someone he loves.

He told Cloud not to join SOLDIER, but the blond is so very stubborn and their friendship is still new. Will he be the one to kill Zack, in the end? Will he be the capstone of Zack’s pathetic legacy?

Then Zack  _ fails  _ and the question is no longer hypothetical—he makes the decision to betray his terrified, grieving sixteen-year-old friend by handing over the Buster and asking the impossible. By making him finish what Zack couldn’t. They’re going to die today. All of them, if they’re lucky. Only some of them if they’re not. He wonders if Sephiroth even deserves such mercy, after all of this.

In a great crescendo, the noise of battle roars and dies. The world becomes hushed, the green tinge growing stronger, thicker, until it’s choking. He opens his eyes, emotion bleeding from him like ink in water.

Sephiroth stands before him, a deeply calm expression on his face. Cloud, dressed in a First Class uniform, is cradled unconscious in his arms, curled into him like a child. He looks so very small compared to Sephiroth’s towering form.

“Zackary,” Sephiroth says, an enigmatic smile curling about his lips. His head tilts slightly, silver hair sliding across the dark leather of his coat. There’s not a single scratch on him. There’s not a single scratch on Cloud, either. “You have taken such good care of him for me. Perhaps I should thank you.”

“Seph—” He coughs mako up from his lungs, as if he just pulled himself out of the tank again. It mingles with his blood, dripping green and red down to stain his shirt.

“Shh...you still have so much to do,” Sephiroth purrs, cat-slit eyes glowing with contentment. “So much to struggle against, now that I have unburdened you. I wonder—what price will you pay for freedom from every thread seeking to bind you?”

“Cloud,” Zack rasps, his confusion and horror growing as he realizes that something is deeply wrong about all of this. “Cloud—”

Sephiroth shakes his head. “Oh, Zack. You needn’t worry.” He turns away and walks into the green mist. Cloud’s boots, just barely visible from behind the General’s black coat, bob limply with each step. 

“I take excellent care of my possessions.”

IV.

Zack wakes with a great, choked gasp, shooting upright. His arms flail, expecting to find the weight of a limp body, but finding...nothing. He scrambles to his feet, disoriented. “Cloud?” he calls, looking around wildly. “Cloud!”

He clings to the hope that Cloud miraculously woke up and wandered away, but the longer he looks, the more that hope dies. There are no tracks around him except his own. He can’t hear anything for miles. Even the wildlife—even the  _ bugs— _ have gone absolutely, eerily silent.

He snatches up the Buster and  _ runs, _ listening as hard as he can, and makes a wide circle around the central point of their campsite. Quiet as it is, he doesn’t dare to yell Cloud’s name, especially not if someone took him  _ (why him, why not Zack, why not kill them both?) _ , but in the end it doesn’t matter. The only sounds he hears are his own ragged breath and his boots pounding through the undergrowth.

Eventually he admits defeat, staggering back and slumping down on top of the sleeping bag. He presses a hand over his mouth as his eyes start to burn.

They were so close. Just a week or two away from Midgar. They’d survived Genesis and all the nonsense Shinra managed to throw at them.  _ They were so close. _ And now Cloud is gone, vanished without a trace.

_ How could this happen? _

He gives himself thirty seconds to wallow. Then he takes a deep breath and draws himself up. It still isn’t over. He might not understand what’s going on, but it isn’t over. He’s going to find Cloud again, even if he had to tear Shinra apart brick-by-brick to do it.

Jaw clenched, he packs up the sleeping bag and shoulders the backpack and wonders if his strange dream about Sephiroth  _ meant _ something. But what? The man is dead. That much he knows for certain.

Unnoticed, a single black feather flutters from the top of his backpack, drifting to the dirt and dissolving like smoke, until no trace of it remains.


	2. Quickening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zack goes home.

V.

He knows the Turks are still after him. Cissnei let him go several times but there’s no way they actually gave up. He doesn’t know what they, as a group, actually want to do with him—kill? Capture? Return to Hojo? He couldn’t begin to guess. It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s not giving up his freedom without a hell of a fight. 

_ I wonder, what price will you pay for freedom from every thread seeking to bind you? _

Without Cloud he’s able to be so much faster and stealthier  _ (relatively speaking), _ covering miles of ground every day at a steady jogging pace or hitching rides when he can get away with it. Not even a week later he’s crossing the wastes around Midgar as fast as his feet can carry him, relying on the sheer expanse of it to keep him concealed.

He’s not stealthy, but like this he doesn’t have to be. 

Zack enters Midgar unmolested.

VI.

“Aerith,” he chokes out, because she’s there— _ really there— _ whirling around so quickly her pink skirt flies around her, a hand over her mouth, green eyes wide. Dirt smudges from her hand onto her face. Zack doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything more beautiful.

“Zack!” she cries. The gardening trowel falls from her other hand to clatter against the decaying floorboards of the church, and then she’s running, as fast as she can, to meet him as he runs to meet her too. They collide somewhere in the center of the church, staggering to stay upright as hands and arms and feet tangle up until neither of them know where they start and the other ends.

He’s laughing, face buried in her hair, inhaling the scent of flowers and freshly-turned earth and her unique, sweet perfume. It’s like coming home—it  _ is _ coming home, because Aerith is all that’s left of his home. Then he’s sobbing,  _ weeping, _ and she is too, and they both sink to their knees and cling for all they’re worth.

“Aerith,” he breathes out between sobs, “Aerith.”

“I was so afraid, Zack,” she says, pressing frantic, teary kisses to his face. “I thought you were never coming back.” Her voice cracks in the middle. It feels like a physical blow.

“I’m sorry.” He holds her tight, mindful of his strength. “I’m sorry. I was trapped for so long, and I—it, it didn’t feel like years. It didn’t...we escaped, but then…” He can’t get the words out. His failure sticks in his throat, choking him.

“We?” She takes his face in her hands. When more tears spill over, she wipes them away with her thumbs.

“Cloud,” he manages. “My friend. I got him out. He was in a coma from the mako, but he was recovering. We got so close.” He has to close his eyes against the memories. “And then he vanished. I don’t...know…I have to find him.”

“Okay,” she whispers without a moment’s pause. “We’ll find him. Together.”

Zack doesn’t think he’s ever loved anyone as much as he loves Aerith in that moment. He gave her the bare minimum of information and she’s already prepared to back him up. And he knows, even once she understands it will be them against the whole of Shinra, that she’ll stand with him.

He doesn’t deserve her.

“Aerith,” he all but keens, dropping his face to her shoulder as he’s overcome with wracking sobs.

She grips him with all the strength she can muster, as if she’s holding his broken pieces together by sheer force of will. “It’s okay, Zack. It’s okay. You’re home now. I’m here.”

VII.

Aerith thinks of the things Zack doesn’t, as she drags him out of the back of the church and through the ruins toward her house. “You have to get rid of the uniform,” she says firmly, pulling him along by their entwined hands. “It’s too identifiable. We’ll have to hide your eyes as much as we can, and cut your hair a bit...hmmm.”

Zack understands leaving the uniform behind, even if it stings, but the hair makes him balk. “What? Why do I have to cut my hair?”

“You need to be as unrecognizable as possible, silly. The Turks are trying to find you, and if you stick around me they  _ will, _ but...if you look different enough they might...look the other way.”

Cissnei had basically done that several times, it’s true, but Zack isn’t so certain about everyone else. “I guess,” he says reluctantly. Aerith has been dealing with them a lot longer than he has, so he’ll trust her on this. Anything to get him more time with her before things inevitably fall apart.

Aerith giggles. “It won’t be so bad, you’ll see!”

Zack manages a smile, even though she isn’t looking back to see it, and squeezes her hand briefly.

He wonders if Cloud would have been on his side or Aerith’s.

VIII.

Mrs. Gainsborough, who was never particularly enthusiastic about Zack’s presence in her daughter’s life, looks briefly stunned when they walk through the front door. She takes him in, eyes sweeping up and down his battered form. Her expression softens, then becomes stern as she crosses her arms over her apron.

“You’re late, young man,” she says, which...wasn’t quite what he was expecting to hear, if he’s honest.

“Mom!” Aerith says, shifting in front of him protectively, but Zack just laughs and winces internally at the slightly hysterical edge he can’t quite suppress.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” he says, bowing his head contritely. “I came as soon as I could.”

“Okay!” Aerith interrupts loudly. “Scolding over, let’s find you some new clothes and get that haircut.” She leans her whole weight into pulling Zack along, but something in Mrs. Gainsborough’s expression makes him resist and wait for her to finish speaking.

“Getting a makeover?” she asks lightly, but he can see the real question in her eyes:  _ are you putting my daughter in danger?  _

And he is. Or he might be. But he still can’t bear to give his last piece of home up. Not after everything he did to get back to her. Not after everything he lost.

“I…need a new look to match the new me,” he says haltingly. “And Aerith…wants to help.”

“Of course I’m helping, silly,” says Aerith breezily, contrasted against the way she’s defiantly staring down her mother. “You don’t know the first thing about fashion! It would be a crime to abandon you now.”

For a long, tense moment, mother and daughter stare each other down, arguing without exchanging a single word. Zack shifts uncomfortably. Aerith squeezes his hand in reassurance.  _ Gaia, _ he’d rather face down a Behemoth than stand here any longer.

Luckily, Mrs. Gainsborough eventually yields with a sigh. “Well. There are some old clothes in the attic that would fit him.”

Aerith’s eyes go wide, privy to some important detail that Zack is not. “Oh  _ mom, _ you don’t need to—”

But she just waves a hand. “Don’t worry about it, baby. I’d rather they be useful than collecting dust forever, and I certainly don’t think you two should be going on a shopping trip right now.”

Aerith’s whole face shines with gratitude. “Thank you, mom.”

IX.

Zack is dragged upstairs, shoved into the bathroom, and sternly instructed to shower, which…well, no complaints from him. After four years of lab ‘cleanings’ and a year bathing in the wilds, a hot shower is basically the Promise Land. By the time he steps out there’s a stack of clothing by the sink. He blinks at it. Had he zoned out so much that he didn’t notice the door opening?

Hm.

There’s a pair of boxers that’s a little small on him, a navy jumpsuit that’s a little too big, and some socks. He pulls it all on, shoving his damp unruly hair out of his face and stepping out of the bathroom. Aerith immediately bounces out of her room, taking his hand and leaning up to smooch his jaw.

“Handsome,” she coos, clearly still in the giddy throes of joy from getting him back alive. He can’t quite muster up the same level of enthusiasm, but he does manage to smile back at her. “Now,” she says, leading him back downstairs. “Haircut time!”

He whines shamelessly as she pushes him into a chair and wraps a towel around his shoulders. “Do we have to?”

“Your hair is very...distinctive,” she says delicately, which is code for  _ ‘yes, you have to.’ _

Mrs. Gainsborough helps out a bit as Aerith goes to town on his unruly black mane, but it’s clear that neither of them are used to cutting men’s hair. The end result is choppy—short in the back, with uneven bangs that sweep past his ear on one side and hang over his face on the other. But...for its purpose, it works. As long as he doesn’t smile, the man in the reflection looks nothing like him.

“Thanks, Aer,” he says, smiling numbly.

He carefully doesn’t think about the truth: that the last time he looked in the mirror, an eighteen-year-old smiled back—and that the man he sees now only exists because that eighteen-year-old died five years ago in Nibelheim

X.

Aerith knows how to read Zack, even after all this time, and she’s also no idiot. He’s confused and distressed and exhausted, but the last thing he needs is to lay down on a way-too-soft mattress and work himself into an even deeper emotional pit. So she shoves a pair of sunglasses on his face, thrusts a basket into his hand, and drags him out with a cheerfully burbled explanation to Mrs. Gainsborough, who doesn’t quite manage to respond in time to stop them.

“We’re going to take some flowers to Leaf House,” she tells him in no uncertain terms. “So pick the prettiest ones! The kids will be so happy to have a new playmate.”

He smiles, and it’s genuine if smaller than normal for him. “Anything for you, babe.”

“Of course,” she agrees with a wink. He doesn’t miss the slight tightness around her eyes.

When they’re walking through the sector hand-in-hand, baskets full of flowers on their arms, she says, “if anyone asks, you’re my new boyfriend Jack, alright?”

A startled laugh nearly sends his flower basket tumbling.  _ “Jack?” _ he repeats incredulously.

Aerith bumps her hip against his and sticks out her tongue. “It’s close enough, right?”

“Sure,” he says. “Close enough that it’s not going to fool anyone.”

“Silly, that’s not the point! You’ll see, I promise.

He opens his mouth, thinking to tease her a little bit more. A glint of gold  _ (or was it silver?) _ catches in the corner of his eye. He turns, instinctively. Forgets how to breathe.

Cloud, leaning up against the side of a building with his arms crossed over his chest, looks directly at Zack with cat-slit blue eyes—and smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> [ Come join me on Tumblr for illustrations and updates (and FF7 shitposts)](https://aimeelouart.tumblr.com/)   
> 


End file.
